Maurício Gardini - Curated Randomness

2020, March

2020-04-04T00:00:00-03:00

10 things to know about sleep as the clocks change - Interesting text about sleep, with some interesting insights.
A Five-Minute Guide to Better Typography - A very short guide with handy typography tips.
No One Can Explain Why Planes Stay in the Air - Text talking about something that we usually take for granted.
The Norwegian art of the packed lunch - Interesting text about this Norwegian tradition, and why it thrives still to this day.

2020, February

2020-02-29T00:00:00-03:00

The CSS Cascade - Really interesting and visual explanation of CSS’ cascading properties.
How the Government Came to Decide the Color of Your Food - Really curious text on why some foods look the way they look.
How to Study: A Brief Guide - Interesting text Interesting text that brings techniques on how to study. More targeted to school students than to college (or later) ones, but the references and additional readings are really interesting.
The meaning of life in a world without work - Great thought exercise about what would be left for people who, in the future, may see their jobs cease to exist.
The Sixth Taste? - This article discusses that, after Umami, a sixth taste is being studied: calcium.
The Sound So Loud That It Circled the Earth Four Times - Article about Krakatoa’s eruption, which generated one of the loudest sounds ever.
What the f*ck Python! - Very curious and fun list of weird behaviors of the Python language.
Why is it so hard to swat a fly? - Curious text explaining the science behind the fly’s agility.

2020, January

2020-02-01T00:00:00-03:00

Can we know what animals are thinking? - Great long read about how animals’ minds.
Hand powered drilling tools and machines - Long read about the history of hand drilling tools.
The Languages Which Almost Became CSS - Interesting text about the history of CSS and all its language proposals.
The Little Book of Python Anti-Patterns - Very interesting list of Python anti-patterns and worst practices.
Polynesian people used binary numbers 600 years ago - Interesting text about how the base-2 system was used way before the computer era.
A tiny tweak to sugar is about to make the world’s sweets a lot healthier - article about how companies are trying to make less harmful versions of sugar.
Why Nature Prefers Hexagons - Great article about the reasons why honeycombs, soap bubbles and other things in nature have a tendency to be hexagonal.
Why We Can’t Have the Male Pill - Interesting article explaining the reasons why the male pill hasn’t been invented yet.

2019, December

2020-01-04T00:00:00-03:00

8 CSS gotchas to start your morning off right - fun article about some common misconceptions about CSS.
The Attention Diet - Great long read about how we live in a world full of information and stimuli, and how we should approach this.
Code Smells - Comprehensive list of types of code smells.
Creating Usability with Motion: The UX in Motion Manifesto - Very interesting and visual article explaining the “The 12 Principles of UX in Motion”.
It took a century to create the weekend—and only a decade to undo it - This text showcases the history of how the concept of weekend was conceived.
Stronger Than Steel, Able to Stop a Speeding Bullet—It’s Super Wood! - this article talks about the super wood, a new product that, through new techniques, makes wood really tough.
The Sugar Conspiracy - interesting article that talks about how, in 1972, a British scientist sounded the alarm that sugar – and not fat – was the greatest danger to our health.
The Website Obesity Crisis - interesting talk about how websites are getting more and more bloated.
Why office noise bothers some people more than others - This article explains why, for some people, simple noises can be such a hassle.
Why this Brazilian city uses tilapia fish skin to treat burn victims - interesting article about the use of tilapia fish skin as an alternative method to treat burn victims.

2019, November

2019-11-30T00:00:00-03:00

Caterpillar found to eat shopping bags, suggesting biodegradable solution to plastic pollution - interesting article showing the discovery of the plastic-eating behavior of caterpillars.
Feel the burn: why do we love chilli? - interesting article about how the chilli is perceived by the human body and why some people actually seek its burn.
How a Frog Became the First Mainstream Pregnancy Test - interesting story of this quirky fact.
The Internet Isn’t Making Us Dumber — It’s Making Us More ‘Meta-Ignorant’ - Article about the effect of the internet on how we think.
SSH Port - This text exhibits the history on how the port 22 became the SSH Port.
Six programming paradigms that will change how you think about coding - Interesting text about programming paradigms.
Why Don’t We Know How to Protect Our Time? - This text shows how we take little action on protecting our free time.
Why Hyperlinks Are Blue (and Other Quirky Web Origin Stories) - A list reporting the history of hyperlinks, SPAM and other.

2019, October

2019-11-02T00:00:00-03:00

The Absolute Minimum Every Software Developer Absolutely, Positively Must Know About Unicode and Character Sets (No Excuses!) - 2003 article about character sets, still interesting despite its age.
How scientists are bringing people back from the dead - interesting text showing how scientists are “pressing pause” on patients’ lives and how this could mean the difference between life and death.
It’s the year 2038–here’s how we’ll eat 20 years in the future - Interesting imaginative exercise on how we’ll be eating in 2038.
The Longest, Most Brutal Wars on Earth Are Fought on Ant-Sized Scales - interesting video about ants, and how some of its species are on a long lasting war till today.
Picturing the Future: How a shadowy consortium controls the evolution of emoji - Long text about how new emojis are chosen, and all the thought that happens to add each symbol.
Scientists may have finally pinpointed humanity’s ancestral hometown - “People want to know where we come from.”, and this text shows the discoveries that were made on this subject.
Spiders Can Fly Hundreds of Miles Using Electricity - Scientists are finally starting to understand the centuries-old mystery of “ballooning”. This article talks about it.
When “easy mode” isn’t enough: An analysis of unclear lessons in video games - Detailed analysis answers why even classics like Super Mario Bros. can confuse.

2019, September

2019-10-05T00:00:00-03:00

184 MPH on a Bicycle - Great video that narrates how the world record in a bicycle was broken.
How do people learn to cook a poisonous plant safely? - Short text that explains how we learn by trial and error, and by copying others.
How to Take the Perfect Nap - 10 science-backed tips for more productive shut-eye.
If the moon were 1 pixel: a tediously accurate scale model of the Solar System - Great visual representation of the Solar Space, and all the empty space on it.
Inventors and the invention: The Rolling Fluid Turbine - Text about this interesting invention.
The Game That Made Rats Jump for Joy - Article explaining how rats were trained to play hide-and-seek. And they really enjoyed that.
The Mysterious Bronze Objects That Have Baffled Archaeologists for Centuries - Article about the roman dodecahedrons, artifacts that archeologists are still trying to understand to this day.
Taster’s Choice: Why I Hate Raw Tomatoes and You Don’t - Very interesting article explaining the science behind taste.
The Unusual Language That Linguists Thought Couldn’t Exist - Article about the Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language, a language that is quite different from the others.
What happens to your body when you die in space - This text speaks about all the scientific and ethical dilemmas that dying in space creates.
Why you shouldn’t exercise to lose weight, explained with 60+ studies - Interesting text about the relation of exercise and weight loss.

2019, August

2019-08-31T00:00:00-03:00

The Dream of Open Borders Is Real—in the High Arctic - Great long read about Svalbard, the land with open borders.
Inside a Top-Secret Factory Where Scent Is Made - Interesting text about how a Scent Factory works.
Life is tough - Great text about tardigrades and other extremophiles.
Many of us have a little bit of hoarder inside us — here’s what to do - Short text with interesting thoughts about the hoarder that is inside us.
The Tunnel of Samos - Great paper about The Tunnel of Samos, one of the greatest engineering achievements of ancient times.
The untold story of the vegetable peeler that changed the world - Interesting story about the OXO Swivel, a vegetable peeler from the 20th century that is praised to this day.
The Vegetarians Who Turned Into Butchers - Interesting report of vegans and vegetarians that discovered that selling meat is their vocation.
Was E-mail a Mistake? - Nice text on the power of synchronized communication, and why it shouldn’t be completely avoided.
Why Ever Stop Playing Video Games - Long read about how video games have replaced work hours for many people, and the side effects of this behavior.
Why food memories are so powerful - Great personal report of how food memories can bridge the mental gaps of our past memories
Why we fell for clean eating - Really comprehensive article about “clean eating” and the perils of pseudo science and extremism.
Zealandia: The Lost Continent That Sank Beneath New Zealand - Article about Zealandia, the continent that never was.

2019, July

2019-08-03T00:00:00-03:00

21 Rhetorical Devices Explained - This article gives names to some rethorical devices that we are used to use.
43 Embarrassing Grammar Mistakes Even Smart People Make - Interesting compendium of common English language mistakes.
Chinese Characters Are Futuristic and the Alphabet Is Old News - Interesting text on how chinese characters are inputted on devices can give us a glimpse of how the world will type characters in the future.
How Hash Algorithms Work - A very thorough walkthrough explaining how a hash algorithm works.
It’s possible to build a Turing machine within Magic: The Gathering - Ars Technica’s article about an article that states that Magic: The Gathering is Turing Complete.
I’ve been studying logos for decades. Here’s what changed this year - Great article showing 2019’s logo visual trends.
Make Driving Dangerous Again - A fun text on why making driving dangerous would make our roads safer.
NASA’s idea for making food from thin air just became a reality — it could feed billions - Nice article about “Solein”, a protein powder that is similar in form and taste to wheat flour and that can be extracted from thin air.
The Purpose Of Life Is Not Happiness: It’s Usefulness - One of of the great Darius Foroux texts, this time talking about the importance of being useful.
The Sheldon Conjecture - Interesting article about the “Sheldon prime”.
The Sinkhole that saved the Internet - A very interesting Tech Crunch text about how buying a domain may have prevented a catastrophic WannaCry outbreak.
The Torturous History of the Treadmill - Great article about the history of the treadmill.
Track This Link - Very interesting Mozilla site that tries to tackle on the web tracking issue that we all have to live with daily.
User Inyerface - An unnerving site that explores all the common user interaction and design pattern issues that are found on the web.
Why We Forget Most of the Books We Read - Interesting text on why we forget what we read.

2019, June

2019-06-29T00:00:00-03:00

The Definitive Study on How to Make Perfect Hard-Boiled Eggs - Great experiment on what’s the best method to make hard-boiled eggs.
Ditch the GPS. It’s ruining your brain. - Interesting text on how our day to day GPS using may be spoiling us.
Honey bees zero in on the empty set - Science’s article on how bees appear to understand the concept of zero.
How HTTPS Works - Great site that explains in a really simple and fun way how HTTPS works.
The Hiding Place: Inside the World’s First Long-Term Storage Facility for Highly Radioactive Nuclear Waste - This Pacific Standard artcile brings an excerpt from Robert Macfarlane’s new book Underland, showing what it’s being done about the nuclear waste that we produce.
Never Underestimate The Impact Of A Single Rotten Apple - A single lazy person in a team can have a big impact on it, as this text states. I think we all have experienced something similar during our work career.
The next big thing in fashion? Not washing your clothes - Not washing your clothes seems gross, but not if you are using one of these travel clothes.
Organic Farming, Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Ant-Processed Coffee - By observing the nature do its thing, a coffee grower discovered an interesting new product. This text talks about it.
Too Many People Want to Travel - The Atlantic’s article on the perils of overtourism, which has led to environmental degradation, dangerous conditions, and the immiseration and pricing-out of locals in many places.
Watch a Moth Suck the Tears Out of a Bird’s Eye, Because Nature Is Metal - Nature can be weird sometimes, as shown on Live Science’s article.

2019, May

2019-06-01T00:00:00-03:00

A Bizarre Form of Water May Exist All Over the Universe - This Wired article talks about the findings that confirmed the existence of superionic ice.
Florida beer used butterflies in the brewing process - First Magnitude Brewing brewed a beer with yeast extracted from a butterfly. More about that on Tampa Bay Times‘s article.
Here’s Why Automakers Don’t Advertise How Long It Takes To Fully Charge An Electric Car - there’s a very interesting reason for that. Jalopnik explains about this.
Ice - Phases - Related to the Wired article, this Wikipedia article talks about all the existing ice phases.
Impossible Foods’ rising empire of almost-meat - Engadged’s article on the creator of the Impossible’s burger, a meat paddy that is entirely vegetarian and that its enthusiasts says it tastes just like meat.
Marcus Aurelius: 3 Rules For Life - Great text from Darius Foroux about Marcus Aurelius’ 3 rules for life. Something to meditate on.
Moondust Could Cloud Our Lunar Ambitions - Wired text on how the recent discoveries about moon dust could cause trouble to future moon exploration.
On the Hunt for the World’s Rarest Pasta - This article talks about the journey that it takes to get the chance to taste su filindeu, the rarest pasta in the world.
Plants Complain to Their Friends When the Neighborhood Gets Too Crowded - Interesting article talking about how plants can communicate by sending chemical signals through the soil.
Table for one: how eating alone is radically changing our diets - there are many consequences that inadvertently happen due to frequently dining solo. This The Guardian text discusses about this.
The curious origins of the dollar symbol - A BBC text unveiling the likely origins of the dollar symbol.
The unlikely origins of USB, the port that changed everything - Interesting interview with the key players of the USB creation.
What is neurogastronomy? - Interesting text that talks about how we eat not only with our mouth, but also with our eyes, nose, hands and brain.

2019, April

2019-04-27T00:00:00-03:00

10 Letters We Dropped from the Alphabet: the video below shows 10 letters that used to be used, but didn’t quite stand the test of time.

Death by PowerPoint: the slide that killed seven people - This text shows the importance of proper communication — no matter the media you’re using to communicate.
How Do Japanese Dump Trash? Let Us Count the Myriad Ways - You’ll be surprised by how much effort that Japan citizens dedicate to proper trash sorting. This New York Times article gives us a glimpse on that.
How To Be More Productive by Working Less - As Mark Manson’s text explains why working more hours doesn’t implies on creating more.
How to Write a Git Commit Message - This text exposes seven simple rules to create great Git commit messages.
Less Tweeting, More Doing - This text talks about how fruitless words can be if no action follows.
Meet your long-lost distant cousin, Homo luzonensis - Ars Technica’s text about the newly discovered species that may be related to the “hobbit,” Homo floresiensis.
The Case for Rooms - interesting CityLab article discussing on why closed floor plans may make more sense in the present world than open floor plans.
These Hawaiian Stick Spiders Have a Profound Case of Evolutionary Déjà Vu - as this article reports, geographically separated groups of spiders evolved to the same three ecological types.
What I learned by living without artificial light - Linda Geddes decided to live for weeks in only candlelight – no bulbs, no screens. This BBC article shows her findings about this.
Why Are So Many Monsters Hybrids? - The Nautilus article explores the captivating horror of category violation.
Why You Should Stop Reading News: We spend hours consuming news because we want to be well informed. But is that time well spent? This very interesting text Farnam Street text discusses about it.

2019, March

2019-03-30T00:00:00-03:00

Dark Patterns.org - Dark Patterns are tricks used in websites and apps that make you buy or sign up for things that you didn’t mean to. The purpose of this site is to spread awareness and to shame companies that use them.
Don’t Pursue Programming if You Aren’t Passionate About It - Like this article discusses about, don’t pursue programming if you don’t really like it.
Four Column ASCII - This article shows why it’s interesting to visualize the ASCII table in divisions of 32.
The Good-Enough Life - The desire for greatness can be an obstacle to our own potential. Great article.
How insects like bumblebees do so much with tiny brains - It is tempting to assume that animals need large brains to perform complicated tasks, but the immense skills of some insects and worms suggest small brains are surprisingly powerful. Great text from BBC.
How Meal Timings affect your waistline - This report discusses how meal timing can be as important as the meal content itself.
How Special Paint On The Hood Of The World War II Jeep Protected Soldiers’ Lives - Interesting article talking about a very special paint that was used during World War II.
How to Know When to Give Up - Giving up isn’t always a failure. Scott H. Young’s text explains why.
List of eponymous laws - Wikipedia list of laws and principles named after a person.
The Mother of All Demos, presented by Douglas Engelbart (1968) - As stated on the video’s description, The Mother of All Demos is a name given retrospectively to Douglas Engelbart’s December 9, 1968, demonstration of experimental computer technologies that are now commonplace. The live demonstration featured the introduction of the computer mouse, video conferencing, teleconferencing, hypertext, word processing, hypermedia, object addressing and dynamic file linking, bootstrapping, and a collaborative real-time editor.
The Purpose of Sleep? To Forget, Scientists Say - Over the years, scientists have come up with a lot of ideas about why we sleep. This New York Times article discusses about the subject.
Scientists Have Confirmed a Brand New Phase of Matter: Time Crystals - This text brings information on a new phase of matter. Looked kinda abstract for me, but an interesting read anyway.
Successful male contraceptive gel trial brings new form of birth control closer - This text reports about the advances on the creation of a male contraceptive.
A Visual and Interactive Guide to the Basics of Neural Networks - The first part of a simple to grasp guide to Neural Networks.
A Visual And Interactive Look at Basic Neural Network Math - The second part of a simple to grasp guide to Neural Networks.
What Is the Oldest Computer Program Still in Use?: you’ll probably be surprised by the answer. - At least I was surprised by the answer that this article brought.
Why You Do Your Best Thinking In The Shower: Creativity & the “Incubation Period” - Great text on why we have the best ideas while we are on the shower.
Yes, There Have Been Aliens - Are there any aliens nowadays? We’re not really sure. But this text explains that, at least in the past, there are strong evidences that they existed.

2019, February

2019-03-02T00:00:00-03:00

7 Rules for Creating Gorgeous UI (Updated for 2019) - Part 1 - A guide to visual aesthetics, written by a nerd (Erik D. Kennedy).
7 Rules for Creating Gorgeous UI (Updated for 2019) - Part 2 - The second part of Erik D. Kennedy’s guide.
Ant species cultivates coffee for accommodation - Scientists on the island of Fiji have discovered a type of ant that plants, fertilizes and guards its own coffee crops. More on that discovery is shown on the article.
Could an astronaut’s corpse bring new life to another world? - This article from Astronomy talks about the possibility of a corpse of a dead astronaut to bring life to a new world.
Creating distraction-free reading experiences - Adrian Zumbrunnen’s reflections on how to create pages on which the content is the main attraction and is treated with due respect.
CSS Reference.io - Learn by example - It’s a free visual guide to CSS. It features the most popular properties, and explains them with illustrated and animated examples.
Do Not Eat, Touch, Or Even Inhale the Air Around the Manchineel Tree - Meet America’s deadliest tree on this article.
Evidence that birds sleep in mid-flight - Many birds fly non-stop for days or longer, but do they sleep in flight and if so, how? This Nature’s scientific article discuss about this fact.
Five Things You Notice When You Quit the News - Interesting article pointing out that following the news doesn’t necessarily makes you a better citizen and could be taking some precious time of yours.
Google teaches “AIs” to invent their own crypto and avoid eavesdropping - Ars Technica’s 2016 article talking about Google Brain’s creation of two AIs that managed to create a cryptographic algorithm good enough to protect their exchange of messages from a third AI.
It’s Official: A Brand-New Human Organ Has Been Classified - It’s an article from 2017, but still is pretty new, comparing to other organ discoveries.
Music for Programming - A collection of playlists to aid in prolonged periods of intense concentration.
Sweden’s six-hour working day is ‘too expensive’ and could be scrapped - This article describes the results of a 2-year pilot of a 6-hour working day experiment.
Ten CSS One-Liners to Replace Native Apps - Proving the functionality of CSS Multi-column Layout and CSS Figures, Håkon Wium Lie, the CSS proposer back in 1994, shows 10 CSS one-liners that try to replicate some of the common designs that are seen on native apps.
The triumphant rediscovery of the biggest bee on Earth - Ars Technica’s article on the rediscovery of the Wallace’s Giant Bee
Wat - a humorous take on programming. Short and funny talk.
What Do My Testicles Do All Day? - If you ever wondered about this… Well, this post has the answer.
Which Language Uses the Most Sounds? Click 5 Times for the Answer - The New York Times’ article talking about the peculiarities of the Taa language.
You’re an Adult. Your Brain, Not So Much. - The human brain reaches its adult volume by age 10, but is it really finished? This article talks about this.